A social practice perspective on environmental volunteering and pest management in Aotearoa New Zealand

Dean Stronge; Geoff Kaine; Jade Hyslop

doi:10.1071/PC24077

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

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A social practice perspective on environmental volunteering and pest management in Aotearoa New Zealand

Dean Stronge

^A ^* , Geoff Kaine

^A and Jade Hyslop

^A

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand.

^* Correspondence to: StrongeD@landcareresearch.co.nz

Handling Editor: Sarah Clement

Pacific Conservation Biology 31, PC24077 https://doi.org/10.1071/PC24077

Submitted: 11 October 2024 Accepted: 12 May 2025 Published: 29 May 2025

© 2025 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Context

The introduction of Predator Free 2050 (PF2050) in Aotearoa New Zealand (henceforth Aotearoa) in 2016 has led to the mobilisation of large numbers of volunteers to engage in pest management across the country.

Aims

While it is important to understand what motivates people to engage with PF2050, we argue that understanding how they are engaging is just as important in ensuring successful pest management.

Methods

Drawing on interviews with environmental volunteers in New Plymouth, Aotearoa, we use Social Practice Theory (SPT) to investigate the practice of rat trapping in an urban environment to understand how people are engaging with the PF2050 movement. In SPT, practices consist of three elements: (1) meanings (includes ideas, norms, and values); (2) competencies (includes skills and know-how); and (3) materials (includes objects and tools), that are linked together in and through performance.

Key results

We found that all three elements, either individually or in combination, were influential in how the practice of trapping rats was performed. It was also evident from the trapping practices described by our interviewees that the variations in the way they carried out their trapping activities did not meet recognised best practice for pest management.

Conclusions

We contend that our research provides additional evidence of a reported shift that is occurring within conservation in Aotearoa where unfortunately, the focus has moved away from resource protection to one of killing pest species (‘dead pests’).

Implications

The normalising of practices that focus on dead pests over resource protection will not achieve Aotearoa’s biodiversity goals.

Keywords: dead pests, eradication, PF2050, practice-as-performance, Predator-Free New Zealand, rat trapping, resource protection, social practice theory.

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